Some Recommended Reading
It’s a while since I’ve talked about books I’ve liked, so I thought I’d take a couple of months to catch you up with my latest recommendations. This month, I’ve got a great mystery for you, a luscious romance, and a great women’s fiction book set not far from where I used to live in subtropical Queensland.
First up is the mystery. The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson is the start of a new series which makes me very happy because I really enjoyed this first book which was published in 2022.
This one takes an occasionally humorous and always knowing nod to classic Golden Age crime fiction and particularly to the Agatha Christie industry. It is also a fond homage to the traditions of the mystery novel, so we get a classic English country house murder updated to the present day.
The three Dahlias of the title are actresses who have played famous 1930s fictional detective Dahlia Lively on screen and who have gathered for a fan convention where the plan is to launch the latest incarnation of the series. There’s elegant national treasure Rosalind King who is coming to the end of her career, rambunctious Caro Hooper who played Dahlia on TV for 13 seasons in the 1980s, and former child star and Hollywood bad girl Posy Starling who has been cast in the new film. All of these women originally have strong reasons for disliking one another and yet when a murder is committed, they must work together to solve the crime before their own secrets are exposed.
Another of the lovely things about this book is the way that the three actresses become so real to the reader. You come to care about them just as they, much against their instrincts, come to care for one another. It’s an enemies into friends story and I always enjoy those.
Katy Watson handles all the incidents and characters with a beautifully light touch. This is a fun read, but it still has enough emotional heft to keep you involved. If you like a great mystery story with compelling characters and lots of charm and wit, I highly recommend this one.
My next choice is a heartwarming book called Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society by Sophie Green, from 2023. This is my first book by this author, but I’ll definitely be seeking out her other publications because WWTSGS was a pure pleasure to read.
In 1987, four very different women cross paths in beautiful Noosa Heads on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. There’s newly divorced Cynthia who grew up in Noosa but has since been living the high life in Los Angeles. There’s Cynthia’s estranged best friend Lorraine who has lost all trace of her real self in the endless demands of her husband’s business and her family. There’s young widow Elizabeth, struggling to come to terms with her husband’s untimely death. And finally there’s rootless and heartbroken Kathy, who has run away to Noosa while she tries to decide what she’ll do with the rest of her life.
These four come together when for various reasons they join the Sunshine Gardening Society, a group of local women who help people with gardens they can’t manage on their own as a result of illness or age or adverse circumstances. The image of lives blossoming along with gardens isn’t particularly original (think The Secret Garden) but that doesn’t make the conceit any less powerful. These four women undertake to return Elizabeth’s garden back into a thriving and beautiful place. As they restore Elizabeth’s husband’s beloved garden to spectacular life, they uncover new aspects of themselves and each other and find unexpected ways to take their lives forward. Lovely and touching! I found myself shedding a tear or two.
My final recommendation is a charming romance from 2022, A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting by Sophie Irwin. Like The Three Dahlias, this one is the first in a series which is good news for people who enjoy a sparkling Regency love story.
This one is very much a modern take on Pride and Prejudice. There are five unmarried sisters in heroine Kitty Talbot’s family, but the girls are in much worse circumstances than the Bennet sisters. Their parents, while kind and loving, were hopeless with money and have left the girls with huge debts and the likelihood of losing the roof over their head. That particular roof is in a Dorset village where oldest sister Kitty has just received the very disappointing news that her rich fiance is jilting her in favor of a lady with a pristine pedigree.
Kitty has to repay the debt in twelve weeks or the family will have to split up and throw themselves upon the mercies of a cold and dangerous world. Not a girl to sit on her hands and feel sorry for herself, Kitty sets out for London determined to find a rich husband within three months. She takes her prettiest sister with her (surprisingly the Mary character if you’re sticking to the P&P vibe) in the hope that she might attract a rich suitor, too.
It’s such fun watching the irrepressible Kitty mow down all opposition and find herself a place in the ton, always with the risk that the true and scandalous circumstances of her background will come to light and destroy all her hopes. She makes no bones about it that she has no money and she intends to find a wealthy man to wed. This could be unappealing but given that she’s doing all this to save her sisters, you’re very much on her side as she sets out to enchant London’s most eligible bachelors into proposing to a nobody from Dorset.
Unfortunately for Kitty, handsome but reserved war hero Lord Radcliffe decides to oppose her aims. He can’t approve of someone with such mercenary goals, especially when it looks like his younger brother has fallen in love with the spirited social climber. The problem is that while Radcliffe starts out disliking Kitty intensely, the more dealings he has with her, the more irresistible he finds her. It’s lovely watching these two wary enemies gradually fall in love much against their better judgment.
This one’s very much a slow burn and there’s not a lot of overt heat if that’s what you like in your romantic fiction. But there’s sparky dialogue in spades and delicious sexual tension and lots of lovely Regency glamour, and the characters really will steal your heart. A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting is very much a modern take on a Georgette Heyer romance. Think Frederica or The Grand Sophie with their heroines who are so busy looking after everyone else that they almost don’t notice that they’re falling in love at the same time. Once all the various intrigues and secrets have come together to create a dramatic and satisfying climax, you’ll find yourself closing the book with a big smile.